http://imgur.com/a/O5UuR
Started homebrewing a few years back and love it to death. I've included some shitty iPhone pics of my pubs brew system and my own home brew ghetto 3 tier. Who would have thought that immersing myself completely into a hobby would ultimately lead towards a job that I love. I love my homebrew setup and brew at home around once every two weeks and even more frequent before one of my carboys bit the dust. I have entered my local homebrew competition twice now and am sitting on 3 bronze medals and 3 silver medals all from my 2 cooler 5 gallon setup.

Do you have any suggestions for a young person who might want to pursue a career or side job brewing?
I'm currently finishing up an undergraduate career in Biochemistry, and have always had an interest in the brewing industry.

With a biochem major, there are brewing related jobs that you could be interested in. Bigger breweries have labs, and yeast companies need people. There are higher paying positions when you look at that stuff.

Don't. Brewing is too much fun. This means way too many fresh grads decide that they want to devote themselves to the brewing industry. I worked in a brewery for just under two years after college. I was a dual major in biology and chemistry and homebrewed for 4 years, placing well in competitions. After spending a year and a half fighting to do anything to get my foot in the door, I finally found a place that would let me start on the bottling line and work my way up. The work is shitty, the hours are shitty, the pay is shitty the competition and constant threat to be replaced was overwhelming. I was one of the chosen ones who was allowed to brew and by the time I got there I despised everything about the industry. There is absolutely no glamour in brewing, and nothing fun about the dirty, gruff parts. I ended up transitioning into the distilling world, and eventually out of that as well. I made a lot of friends at the brewery and none of them still work there (or at any other brewery) even though most of them are constantly fighting to get their foot in the door of any brewery that will take them. Ever read Grapes Of Wrath? How the farmers are treated horribly because there were so many of them looking for work and could easily be replaced? Yeah, same thing in the brewing industry.

I'm really sorry about the long-winded explanation, but I wish someone gave me this kind of talk before I decided to turn down grad school and devote myself to beer. Beer is best enjoyed from the customer and homebrewer perspective.

I am a professional brewer at a relatively small (15bbl brewhouse) brewery in the Seattle area. I absolutely love it.

You're right about a lot of it. It's not glamorous. It's hard, dirty work. My hours aren't ideal and the pay is, well, modest. But I'll be damned if its not the best job I've ever had. I work with an amazing group of guys, and have some very talented/seasoned brewers to work under. I absolutely love what I do.

Perhaps my situation is anomalous, but if this is something he is passionate about he shouldn't let the horror stories drive him away.

You're not hijacking at all, I was really hoping someone would chime in who had a good experience. I have no doubt that some people have found jobs they love as brewers. There are enough breweries out there that they can't all be bad. I just want them to understand how competitive the job is and reconsider if it's something they really want to do. No matter how hard you work, it will never look like a Sam Adams commercial.

Good on ya. Hopefully those experiences didn't sour you too much.
Like you said, the brewing world is just as diverse as any other industry, and full of idiots as well as some really bright, innovative and fun people.

Thanks for the long-winded explanation. I appreciate the advice, I'm glad you were able to give me a heads up about the industry before I made and serious plans about my future in it. I'll certainly keep the 'magic' going by homebrewing myself.

Definitely homebrewing. I dated a girl in high school who's dad homebrewed and after helping him brew and sample a batch I was hooked. I couldn't keep up with the demand from fellow students and would brew and donate beers to throw parties for fundraisers, won competitions, ect. It seemed obvious that I should always be brewing. Nope.

That's pretty awesome. I got interested when I was much younger working in my lab isolating dyes from different berries I found around my backyard. Eventually I accidentally fermented some and it went from there.

If you come into any competitive industry without any unique qualifications, you are going to have to work your ass off for low pay, or get lucky. I considered taking a job in working in the a cellar at a regional craft brewer five years ago (after ~50 failed applications), but the hours/salary and more importantly lack of creative control made me decide to stick with my desk job and homebrewing.

For me the path into the industry lead through homebrewing to blogging, which itself got my foot in the door for magazine articles, podcasts, and a book. All of that unique cred has yielded a few job offers (head brewer, consultant). Currently I’m being paid to develop recipes, which fits my interests/skills much better than being a production brewer, and I get to keep my “real” job.

Before you consider working at a brewery, talk to some local/small brewers, offer to shadow them, haul kegs, ask questions, see if it is the sort of work you'd enjoy.

I have a very similar story. Started homebrewing two years ago, got involved volunteering at a very small (and now very successful) local brewey which turned into a job. I was the sixth employee at the time and we now have 11 people! We've brewed afew of my homebrew recipes and I'm working on "piloting" more at home on my 5 gal system. I still homebrew a lot, and still love competing. Congrats, it's not for everyone, but I love it and wouldn't trade it for anything.

That's sweet. I think I got hit with a lucky stick on this one, I am the only assistant brewer here under the head brewer, which is great because we're both metal heads and get along really well. I basically handle all the grunt work of milling brewing cellar man tank cleans, cell counts and viability and am now getting trained on filtering. What a way to improve my resume if this doesn't work out!

I hear you. I brew, clean tanks, clean kegs, package, clean other stuff, paint, fix stuff. Basically anything production related. It's a lot of fun and I've been able to apply knowledge from work to homebrewing and know she of homebrewing to work.

I was a barista for years before I got a job serving at an Olive Garden. (Worst month of my entire life). I had a frien suggest that I follow my dreams so I looked on Craigslist that night for a better job. Lo and behold I got a job running a bottlin machine at a young brewery, left there because the head brewer couldn't tell a good employee from his thumb up his ass, so I got a job at a homebrew supply store. I only had the job for a week before they asked me to go and apply for the position I have now, and I got it! I suggest everyone look into doing what they love but please don't lose a hobby because of it!

Thats great. I am making friends with the crew of a small craft brew pub that is going to start brewing soon. Im hoping to be able to get in with them part time so i can keep my career. I doubt i could make the same money brewing that i make coding.

Can you talk much about the brewery? Not which one it is or anything but your setup? How big is a batch size? I'm going to guess from the picture you do single infusions? How many vessels in the brew house? Do you guys package and if so what do you use for that?

I think we come from the same mindset. I loved homebrewing, and couldnt imagine doing anything else for a living. So now I work in a brewery. I still homebrew, I just make more "interesting" styles then what we do at work. I also help run our Pilot program, where we make one off's for events, then if they're good they get bumped up to a one off full batch, and maybe into seasonal rotation. That keeps the job interesting enough.

Yeah I can talk about it, the brewery is squatters pub in Salt Lake City, we have a direct fire kettle, and an insulated mash/lauter tun, 7bbl capacity, 3 14bbl fermenters and 4 7bbl fermenters. We have 8 Grundy serving tanks one of which is a dedicated cask beer tank. We also have 8 wine barrels dedicated for our 5th element farmhouse Brett, and our 529 Flanders brown. We package every now and then but it's kind of a pain in the ass because our bottling setup is pretty old world tech. Trying to convince the higher ups for funding on a maheen! We mostly do single infusions but on a rare occasion we will step infusion a recipe. Pretty much every beer we brew is served via draft, but Utah laws require any brew over 4% be packaged and sold in bottles.

We have what's called a brewers cooperative, in which w are partners with another brewery and there is our pub, their pub, and also our big brewery which takes on all the bulk packaging. At the pub we have our small batch series which are bottled and our farmhouse ales. Everything else is draft. We have trouble sometimes keeping up with our hefe and our pale ales!